Wonderland BookSavers: What We Do and Why We Do It

In Wonderland BookSavers, we donate books to kids all around the world because we think every kid should be able to know how to read and be able to read. Reading is a big part of life, and if you don’t know how to read, there are many things you cannot do. We donate our books to people for free!

-Reid

boxes of our books

How do we imagine new ideas and ways to help people?

Education is critical for success in life. It provides people with the ability to help themselves instead of relying on others. The adage “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” attests to this perfectly. We feel that donating books is a creative and impactful way to help people, and the simple act of reading a book can have drastic impacts.

-Madeline

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” -Frederick Douglass

How did we begin DI (Destination Imagination) and what prompted us to become involved?

Wonderland BookSavers began it’s DI journey in the 2012-2013 school year, shortly after the founding of our charity in September 2012. The challenge we competed in that year was “Real to Reel.” In that challenge, we had to create a video about our project. We realized that in completing the DI challenge, we also had taken a significant step in our charity: we have continued to use our video to promote our charity. Each year, when we complete the DI challenge, we find that we have made a major accomplishment for our charity. Participating in DI not only provides a fun, creative, and educational experience, but also provides us with skills such as movie making, promoting our charity, and giving elevator pitches.

-Madeline

preparing our props before our DI play

What inspires us to continue donating books?

Wonderland Booksavers has had many book donations and a lot of kids have been sending us thank you notes, which makes us happy. Also, we have donated over 60,000 books and every book we donate inspires us to do more. To see the smiles on the kids faces when they get a book makes all of us happy and inspires us more!

-Reid

Connecticut children making Poster Pals for our friends in Haiti

Where do we get the books, shoes, and school supplies?

Our very first book donation occurred after we discovered that our local library was de-accessing books by the thousand. The de-accessed books were then sent to a shredding company to be made into newspaper! We were appalled to find that this was a common practice amongst libraries. We decided to intervene, and we asked the library if we could take the books, complete the de-accessing process, and donate the books to New Beginnings Family Academy, a local school lacking books. The library agreed, and, since then, we have continued to save books from being shredded. We also hold book drives to collect books. Currently, we are also working on a project to sign 2,000 people up on our First Book form. If 2,000 people sign up, then First Book will donate us 40,000 free, new books. We collect our school supplies and shoes mostly from drives we hold at local schools and churches.